During a coaching session today a particularly talented client discovered how he could teach his very powerful brain to get out of the way of his heart so that he could recognize feelings when they occurred by using the awareness of life lessons to inspire his art.  Over the course of the last few sessions, this client said that he wanted to get into the practice of journaling, yet his in-action each week indicated otherwise. 

Like most of us with good brains figuring out how to survive in a dysfunctional world, this client had learned how to crawl right up inside of his brain (like the little man operating the body in the movie, “Men in Black”) and shut off any and all painful feelings that occurred as protection.   Beginning at an early age, he’d gotten the message that being an artist was not a “worthy” effort and so he’d dismissed any of his gorgeous drawings and paintings as being par-for-the-course and shut out any possibility of deriving real creative release through his art (much less acknowledgement from others).  Now at forty-something, he’s climbing his way out of a deep depression and learning how to re-program his excellent mind to become receptive for the receipt of acknowledgements and compliments about his artwork.

In addition to being a gifted artist, he also has a fabulous sense of humor (I might add, a bit satirical too in a lovely-hitting-your-funny-bone way), so he is now going to teach his brain to become aware of opportunities for utilizing his creativity to explain what he is feeling when a life event occurs. In other words, instead of going with the knee jerk reaction to T H I N K his way out of a feeling when something intense happens, he’s going to channel that energy into his art as a way to turn on his heart so that he can feel.

I realized during our session that a great mind is only as good as we train it to be.  Sometimes, when we are left to our own devices, a smart brain can turn in on itself.  If we think of our brain as just one of the many wonderful tools that we were gifted with in this life, then we can view teaching our brains a new way of looking at something as “taking our brains through obedience school”.  Like any of the working dog breeds, our brains need a job. If we’ve allowed our brains to run amok, then it’s going to take some time to teach ourselves how to pay attention to how we’ve been thinking and how we want to direct our brains to think in a new way.  Like any new puppy, with consistency our brains will adapt and learn new behavior.

No matter how great your brain is, YOU are more than your brain.  You’re also more than your heart.  I believe that we are spiritual beings having a human experience.  Based on that belief, what responsibility will you take for how you think and feel today?

Go fetch!